


keep your soul like a secret in your throat

by easystreets



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Fluff, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28724379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easystreets/pseuds/easystreets
Summary: Mac finds out Dennis is a vampire, and Dennis agonizes over that. Vampire!AU fluff.
Relationships: Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 5
Kudos: 18





	keep your soul like a secret in your throat

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy! thanks for reading and taking a chance on a weird vampire fic.

“Mac,” Dennis says, breathily. He’s surprised he even has the decency to ask, he's so hungry.

“Yeah,” Mac says. “Yeah, Den?” He’s making another one of his shitty smoothies that satiate nothing, and when he turns to face Dennis his hands are stained bloodred from the beets he likes to put in. 

“You’d-- you’re my best friend, right?” He can barely think straight. Mac’s body is blurry in from of him; Dennis grabs at him blindly, holding on so he doesn't fall. He's pretty sure he wouldn't be able to get back up if he did.

Mac’s face brightens, and Dennis thinks, _oh no_. “Of course, dude.”

“You’d do anything for me?” Dennis presses him against the refrigerator, runs his hands over his bare shoulders, that stupid tattoo he never should have gotten. 

“Anything,” Mac breathes, and then he’s about to say something, but it comes out as a strangled gasp, because Dennis’s teeth are sinking sharp into the fleshy part of his upper shoulder and he tastes like nothing else ever before.

His blood is so warm and rich; hot when it drips in his mouth and onto his chin, trickles down his throat and tingles in the pit of his stomach. Mac’s bigger than Dee, more flesh than bony bird ligaments, so Dennis allows himself to gorge on his blood, until his hands stop shaking and dig into Mac’s sides again, until his heart beats even.

It’s the best he’s ever tasted. Smooth and warm, not filmy like the blood he picks up from the hospital. Fresh-tasting, too. He never wants to feed off anyone else again; he never wants to sip refrigerated garbage, more plasma than anything, through a travel mug or a water bottle again. He wants this: fresh, warm, _alive_. He wants Mac.

“Woah,” Mac says, looking a little green when Dennis finally pulls himself off. “That was…” He shakes his head, runs a thumb over his arm. The venom should have taken away most of the wound and all of the pain, but Dennis isn’t sure if he actually remembered to seal it-- the tiny puncture marks, four in total, red against the white of his skin and the black of murky tattoo ink. 

“Yeah.” Dennis agrees. “The-- uh, the venom, it should heal it up. It gives you a high.” He feels awkward now, Mac’s blood smeared on his face like cheap lipstick. “It’s uh-- just drink some water and you should be fine.”

“You’re a vampire,” Mac says, his voice blank. He doesn’t sound pissed, just… devoid of any sort of emotion, which is par for the course for Dennis, but an infrequent rarity for someone like Mac. “My best friend’s a vampire,” he says to no one.

“No shit.” Dennis runs a finger over his canines. Fangs. Whatever.

“Dude,” Mac says, breaking into a smile. “That is _so_ cool.” Then, the question Dennis has been expecting for ages, once he finally told Mac he was a vampire. “Can you turn me?” 

“What?” Dennis says. He’s not even worried now, or shaky from starvation anymore. He’s just vaguely annoyed by Mac’s stupid fucking questions that seem to stem entirely from late-night episodes of _Buffy_. “No, I’m not gonna turn you. Then we’d have to get blood for two people, idiot. Do you know how expensive synthetic blood is?”

“Well, we could drink from Dee and Charlie. And Frank, maybe.” Dennis’s face curls up in disgust at the thought of biting into Frank’s crepey old person skin. He’s disgusting, his blood is probably more sewer water than anything. “Homeless people would do it too, I bet. We could get Cricket on our blood roster.”

“Absolutely  _ not _ ,” Dennis says. He’s not even going to touch that last comment. _Blood roster._

“That’s the coolest.” Mac says. He does a little bounce on his feet, and Dennis can’t help but smile at it. Mac can be kind of cute, sometimes. But he’d make a shitty vampire, what with his dopey face and his lack of stealth. “Does my blood taste good?”

Dennis sighs. “It tastes like  _ blood _ , Mac.” He’s definitely never telling Mac that his blood is the best he’s ever drank, that synthetics from the hospital and blood from his own fucking twin aren’t a fraction as satiating as what courses through Mac’s veins. He can’t. 

“No, but on _Buffy_ \--”

“Stop basing what you believe as facts off episodes of a T.V show that has  _ Vampire Slayer _ in the title.” 

“Sorry,” Mac says, a little sheepish. “It’s just--” He puts his hands at his sides, then brings them to his chest, and finally his arm, like he doesn’t know what to do with them. “It’s so neat. Can I tell Charlie? Does Dee know? How does vampire sex work?”

He doesn’t even know where to start. Dennis slaps Mac’s hand into his own (no, it’s not the same as holding hands, because he digs his fingernails in on purpose and makes it as uncomfortable as hell for Mac, pushes him until he breaks just for the satisfaction) and sits him down on the couch like he's a parent giving his kid the sex talk.

“Yes,” he says, his voice serious. “My dick works.”

* * *

  
Three hours, two half-finished episodes of _Buffy_ in the name of research, and one fucking arduous conversation later, Mac knows all there is to know about Dennis’s being a vampire.

He doesn’t really have to eat. Yes, Dee knows and Mac can tell Charlie. He usually drinks blood from the blood bank or Dee if he’s in a pinch. There’s a secret network of vampires (at this Mac gasps) but the network is mostly a bunch of Facebook groups and a few assholes that meet at the library every Thursday. No, he doesn’t go to the fucking vampire support group, and he also doesn’t drink from himself. (It’s like sucking your own dick _,_ Dennis says gravely.) The sun hurts but it’s manageable. No, he won’t turn Mac. Yeah, girls like it but they don’t believe him until he bites.

“Wow,” Mac says, when he’s done asking if Dennis has to get his fangs professionally sharpened. “This is the greatest day of my life.”

“I really didn’t think you’d take it that well,” Dennis admits. “What with your being... into God and all.” He honestly thought Mac would have the garlic and the crucifixes out by now.

“He’s fine with you being a vampire,” Mac rolls his eyes, like everyone has a fucking personal phoneline to Jesus in their heads. “As long as you don’t... kill people.” His voice slows at that; it’s his obnoxious thinking tone that he thinks makes him sound like Sherlock Holmes. “You don’t, do you?”

“What.” Dennis seethes. He does not-- nor has he ever, thank you-- killed a person.

“Kill people.”

“Mac, so help me God, if you do not quit asking me these-- these idiotic and stupid questions about being a vampire, I will sic the entire vampire population of Philly on you. I will let them drink your blood through Silly Straws, Mac.” Dennis pauses for effect. “I will let them sip from you like you’re a goddamn juice box.”

“Okay.” Mac raises his hands, still beet-stained, in the air. “Um. I’m gonna make a shake.” He doesn’t ask if Dennis wants one, and that’s not even the strangest thing that’s happened today. 

* * *

Mac leaves him alone for a few hours, which is disturbing as hell. 

“What do you want?” Dee says, when she finally picks up the phone. This is why Dennis never tells her shit. She has no sense of urgency. “You were supposed to be at the bar, like, eight hours ago, dick--”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dennis says. “Listen. I drank from Mac.”

“Why?” Dee spits, and then: “I thought you were never gonna tell him. I bet he asked you some weird questions, huh? Like, _Dennis, does your dick work? Dennis, please, please turn me into your gay little vampire boyfriend?”_

“No--” Dennis coughs, and he’s so glad it’s a phone call so she can’t see his cheeks turn red. “ _Yes_. He wrote shit down and everything, Dee. In a _notebook_.”

“Did he?” Dee says, her voice sickening sweet. “I bet he’d let you feed off him whenever. It might not even be that bad. Does he taste like shit?”

Dennis sighs, because late at night, starving and sick in bed, waiting for Dee to bring him a baggie or just herself, he’s wondered just how far Mac would go. Would he ever stop Dennis, if the very life got drained from his own body? Dennis thinks if he asked Mac to crucify himself in the living room, the only question would be, how deep do you want me to put the nails in my wrist?

It’s usually a comforting thought: Mac would do anything for him. Now, though, now that he’s actually fed off him, and tasted him-- oh, God, nothing is ever going to compare to that-- he doesn’t want to give it up. He doesn’t want to push this until it breaks like he does with everyone else.

“Whatever,” Dee says when he doesn’t respond, just stares at the wall and focuses on the sudden realization: I want this. I want Mac. “Enjoy your cheap vampire movie marathon with Mac, asshole.”

“I will,” Dennis says. He shoves the phone back onto the receiver and runs his tongue over his teeth, tries to see if he can still taste Mac.

* * *

He comes out of his room and feels weirdly on edge.

There are no Mac sounds anywhere. No humming off-key to the radio or boiling pots of spaghetti left unattended or dishes clattering in the sink or VHS tapes being manhandled. 

“Mac?” Dennis calls.

“Gimme a minute,” Mac says, in his stupid phone voice. “I’m-- I’m shitting!”

It’s the biggest lie Dennis has ever heard. And he’s heard a lot. Having scary good hearing kind of lends itself to that. He relaxes on the couch in the living room and listens.

“Dude, no way,” Charlie’s tinny voice is saying, through Mac’s busted-ass phone speakers. “A vampire?”

“Yes.” Mac says. "Really.”

“Are you like… cool with it?”

“You’re kidding, right?” Mac coughs. “That’s pretty much the most badass thing ever. He can heal people and-- dude, when he bit me--”

“He bit you! Did he turn you?”

“No,” Mac says, sounding a bit too much like Dennis for comfort. “I asked. He said it kind of sucked. I still think it would be sick, though.”

“Totally,” Charlie murmurs and then they’re talking about toes or something, and Dennis decides that he’ll set up the TV for movie night. Not out of kindness. Just. He really doesn’t want to have to reorganize all his tapes and DVDs again.

“Hi,” he says, when Mac comes out of the bathroom, hands wet and splashing water onto the floor.

“I did some research,” Mac says. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Dennis wasn’t really expecting that. He pulls up the heated blanket they accidentally stole from Walmart three years ago, and wonders if he can just melt under it, because it’s a stupid question and he doesn’t want to answer it. He doesn't want to feel like shit for not happening to mention that he was a fucking vampire for the past two decades.

“I don’t know,” Dennis finally says. “I didn’t want to make things weird.”

“Weird?” Mac stares at him. “This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Wow,” Dennis says. “That’s wonderful for you.”

“I didn’t mean--”

“I know what you meant, asshole.” Dennis sighs. He pats the couch next to him, and Mac sits. “But it’s not just a-- a party trick, okay? It’s… it’s not fucking fun.”

“Sorry,” Mac says. “Um-- can I ask you a question?”

“Sure, what question could you have possibly dreamed up while shitting that you haven’t already asked?”

“Who turned you? "

He really doesn't want to answer that. Really, really doesn't.

“It was-- in the library. Klinsky was-- she still is one, duh. It’s obvious, but I was like fourteen and didn’t know it back then. Anyway, I went to return my math textbook, and it was two days late. I didn’t have any money, because Frank had cut all of our credit cards, and she said I could pay her back… a different way.”

“No!” Mac says. “Sex?”

“No,” Dennis frowns indignantly. “She turned me, idiot. She drank from me first, and I thought I was going to die. She drank so much-- way too much-- and I was just a kid, what, like ninety pounds? And so I laid there. For hours. I don’t know. It was dark out, when I got up and left and I had to walk home. On my way, there was this drunk guy, just stumbling, and I got-- I felt sick. I had to bite him. It was like I couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop me either.”

“You killed him,” Mac says quietly.

“I wish.” Dennis says, shaking his head. “He-- he lived. I think he was fine. I was so young, I don't think I could have--I left him by the train tracks and I didn’t stop running until I got home, after. And I didn’t even feel bad. I just felt so fucking good from the blood. It didn’t even make sense until I got the urge to feed again, which is how Dee found out.”

“So you’ve been keeping this a secret from me for nearly twenty years?”

“I-- it’s-- I thought you would have picked up on it by now,” Dennis deflects. He hovers over the play button on the Buffy DVD. “I mean, it’s kind of obvious.”

“Dennis,” Mac says, “you were hungry as shit. You had to drink all of that refrigerated blood product bullshit, or feed from _Dee_. I made you shakes for nothing!” He pauses, kicks his feet against the couch. “We’re best friends, bro. You should have told me forever ago. I would have helped you, let you drink from me or something.”

“You’re stupid,” Dennis says, smiling a little. “Just wait until the venom wears off.”

“I’m fine with that,” Mac says, leaning onto Dennis. He wraps his arm around until he can feel the raised edges of Mac’s shitty tattoo and one, two, three, four teeth marks. “It-- it’s part of life, dude. Doing good things for people.”

“What are you, Mother Teresa, because I took a tiny bit of your blood?”

“Fuck you,” Mac says, and then they’re kissing, on the fucking couch, in front of the TV with its green-grey lights glowing down on them and Mac’s soft skin bruised where he drank, soft and his to touch. 

He bites at the inside of Mac’s mouth. He leans into it, wraps his warm hands around Dennis’s frigid body.

“You’re the-- my best friend,” Mac stumbles, pushing him down into the couch and knocking the bowl of popcorn onto the floor, and yeah, Dennis really, really hopes the venom won’t wear off.

* * *

> They sacrificed to demons that were no gods, to gods they had never known, to new gods that had come recently, whom your fathers had never dreaded.
> 
> \- Deuteronomy 32:17

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading! Lately I've been more active on my tumblr (easystreetz) and i would really love some sunny mutuals on there, so feel free to say hi! also, i've been super into MCR lately so the title is from those guys (specifically the song vampires will never hurt you). fuck yeah, vampires! 
> 
> *leave a comment if you too would like to have or be someone's gay little vampire boyfriend. or if you want my list of good vampire fics.


End file.
